Django Unchained
(**1/2) In Quentin Tarantino’s new tale of wickedly savage retribution, a black
man (Jamie Foxx) gets to rewrite Deep South history by becoming a bounty hunter
on a killing spree of white slave owners and overseers just before the Civil
War. It’s Tarantino at his most puerile and least inventive, with the premise
offering little more than cold, nasty revenge and barrels of squishing,
squirting blood. The usual Tarantino genre mishmash — a dab of blaxploitation
here, a dollop of spaghetti Western there — is so familiar now that it’s
tiresome. Performances by Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio, Christoph Waltz and Samuel
L. Jackson make the film intermittently entertaining. Rated R, 165 minutes. —
The Associated Press

Guilt Trip (*1/2) In
this lame comedy written by Dan Fogelman and directed by Anne Fletcher, Barbra
Streisand and Seth Rogen star as a mother and son traveling together in a
cross-country road trip. She talks constantly while he becomes more and more
discomforted and annoyed, probably like most of the audience will be. Bad jokes,
little chemistry and not much here to admire. Rated PG-13, 95 minutes. — Boo
Allen

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (***) Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson
returns with J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel starring Martin Freeman as young Bilbo
Baggins. Bilbo joins an army of dwarfs and Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen) for
a long march and multiple battles to prove his bravery. As usual, Jackson
delivers a technically remarkable film, filled with memorable costumes and
sets. Rated PG-13, 166 minutes. — B.A.

Jack Reacher (****)
Clever, well-crafted and darkly humorous, Jack Reacher features one of those
effortless bad-ass performances from Tom Cruise that remind us that he is
indeed a movie star. OK, so maybe Cruise doesn’t exactly resemble the Reacher
of British novelist Lee Child’s books, but Christopher McQuarrie’s film moves
so fluidly and with such confidence, it’ll suck you in from the start. Besides
being a mind teaser, Jack Reacher offers the muscular thrills of a ’70s action
flick, including fight scenes and a thrilling, prolonged car chase through the
streets of downtown Pittsburgh. With Rosamund Pike, Robert Duvall and Werner
Herzog. Rated PG-13, 130 minutes. — AP

Life of Pi (**1/2)
Ang Lee directs from Yann Martel’s allegorical novel about a boy, Pi Patel
(Suraj Sharma), who travels with his family from India to Canada. A shipwreck
lands him in a small boat with a group of zoo animals, all quickly reduced to a
tiger. Man and beast coexist, supposedly giving Zen-like life lessons to the
boy, who grows into a man (Irrfan Khan) who tells the story in flashback.
Moderately entertaining pseudo-spiritual diversion with elaborate but not
particularly awe-inspiring special effects. Rated PG, 127 minutes. — B.A.

Lincoln (****) This
is more a wonky, nuts-and-bolts lesson about the way political machinery
operates than a sweeping historical epic that tries to encapsulate the entirety
of the revered 16th president’s life. That was a smart move on the part of
Steven Spielberg and Pulitzer-winning screenwriter Tony Kushner. Talky and
intimate but also surprisingly funny, Lincoln focuses on the final four months
of Abraham Lincoln’s life, and Daniel Day-Lewis inhabits the role fully. With
Tommy Lee Jones, James Spader, John Hawkes and David Strathairn. Rated PG-13,
150 minutes. — AP

Monsters, Inc. The
Disney-Pixar hit from 2001 returns, now in 3-D. Its groundbreaking computer
animation tells the story of a girl named Boo, who finds herself in the
scream-processing factory. But the soft and cuddly monsters who work there (voiced
by John Goodman and Billy Crystal) turn out to be scared of her. They get over
it and help Boo get back to her world. Rated G, 95 minutes. — B.A.

Parental Guidance
There’s something touching about how hard Billy Crystal and Bette Midler hustle
to peddle the threadbare material that makes Parental Guidance a perfectly
tolerable, if uninspired, moviegoing experience. Artie Decker (Crystal),
despondent over losing his longtime gig as “De Voice of the Fresno Grizzlies,”
and his wife, Diane (Midler), have been recruited to baby-sit their daughter
Alice’s (Marisa Tomei) three kids when she and her tech-geek husband Phil (Tom
Everett Scott) get a last-minute opportunity to have some out-of-town alone
time. Rated PG, 104 minutes. — The Hollywood Reporter

Rise of the Guardians
A very odd assortment of mythical childhood figures — the fearsome team of
Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, the Sandman and Jack Frost —
are thrown together as an unlikely set of action heroes in DreamWorks
Animation’s attractively designed but overly busy and derivative mishmash of
kid-friendly elements. Jack (voiced by Chris Pine) is hard-pressed by a
muscular Santa, known as North (Alec Baldwin), to join in the battle against a
diabolical figure (Jude Law) who threatens to throw Earth into darkness and
provide nightmares to kids everywhere. Rated PG, 97 minutes. — THR

Skyfall (***1/2)
Daniel Craig returns as James Bond in the 23rd film based on 007’s exploits.
Britain’s MI6 comes under attack, with M (Judi Dench) as the chief target. Bond
finds and brings back the villain (Javier Bardem), but that just sets the stage
for further action and adventure.
Between the action sequences, director Sam Mendes takes time to build a
personal drama that distinguishes this Bond film from its predecessors. Rated
PG-13, 143 minutes. — B.A.

This Is 40 (**1/2)
Theoretically, this moderately funny domestic comedy follows two characters,
Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Leslie Mann), a few years after their appearance
in writer-director Judd Apatow’s Knocked Up. Here, Apatow seems
to be revealing all, milking his own life for its crotch gags and bathroom
humor as the couple approach their 40th birthdays. Apatow’s and Mann’s two
daughters even appear as Pete and Debbie’s offspring. Rated R, 134 minutes. —
B.A.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2 (***1/2) The first four adaptations of Stephenie
Meyer’s mega-best sellers were, for the most part, laughably self-serious
affairs full of mopey teen angst, stilted dialogue and cheesy special effects.
Now, Bill Condon (who also directed Breaking Dawn — Part 1)
finally lets his freak flag fly. His final Twilight movie dares to have a little fun. Bella (Kristen
Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson) are now married vampires and parents to
a daughter (Mackenzie Foy). With the help of the bloodsucking Cullen clan and
vampires from around the globe, they must band together with Jacob (Taylor
Lautner) and his werewolf buddies to protect the half-human, half-vampire spawn
from the evil and suspicious Volturi. Rated PG-13, 115 minutes. — AP

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